In and Out of Place: Ethnography as 'Journeying With' Between Central and South Australia. Issue 3 (18th October 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hinkson, Melinda
• Other Names: Hinkson Melinda guestEditor.; Vincent Eve guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Oceania. Volume 88:Issue 3(2018:Nov.)
• Page Start: 254
• Page End: 268
• Publication Date: 2018-10-18
• Subjects: displacement -- ethnographic method -- journeying with -- nostalgia -- tactical humanism -- Warlpiri; Ethnology -- Periodicals; Ethnology -- Oceania -- Periodicals; Oceania -- Civilization -- Periodicals; 919
• DOI: 10.1002/ocea.5201
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0029-8077

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the case of an Aboriginal woman from Central Australia who has in recent years experienced a radical shift in her life circumstances. It pursues a writerly approach that makes the variety of forces and relationships legible that she now navigates, including that of the anthropologist‐friend. 'Journeying with' is proposed as an ethnographic method as well as an ethical stance well attuned to the turbulent circumstances of the present—in the Warlpiri life sketched here, and globally. Destabilization and displacement are increasingly common features of contemporary experience, and this paper proposes that ethnography anchored at the level of the individual person is well placed to engage unsettling transformations in the world at large, in social relationships, and modes of personhood, as well as in anthropological production.